Vicki Brown biography

Vicki Brown is a travel writer and editor, who has been at Responsible Travel since 2013. Her first experience of travel writing was a blog she began while backpacking in South America in 2007. “I was discovering ecotourism and really enjoyed writing about it.”

Vicki has worked all over the world. After art college, she lived in Spain for over three years, working as an English teacher and later a graphic designer. Teaching then took her to Ecuador and Lisbon, before working on sustainable tourism projects for USAID, including periods living in Ecuador and Panama, and shorter stints in Uganda, Namibia and the Bolivian Amazon. Much of this time was spent working with community based tourism projects, writing content, taking photographs (photography is huge interest of hers) and doing graphic design work for tourist boards, national parks and environment ministries.

Vicki has had articles published in the Sunday Times and The i, and was runner up for the British Guild of Travel Writers’ new travel writer award in 2013. In 2017, she had a short story published in a Bradt Guides travel anthology.

At Responsible Travel, Vicki particularly enjoys writing about ethical issues: female entrepreneurs, elephant trekking, LGBT travel. “The research is fascinating. You go in with preconceived ideas and then discover just how complex each issue is. Researching these pieces has changed the way I think about all sorts of things. My job is then to communicate that to people. So many times people then say, ‘I had no idea about that.’ It’s the kind of writing that makes a bit of a difference.”

South America remains one of Vicki’s favourite destinations, and the urge to document is always strong. “Even when I’m on holiday, I always carry a journal, a camera, sometimes a sketchpad. I’m always trying to meet local people, organisations, projects. I find it hard not to!”

Vicki believes good travel writing should surprise people. “There should be something in there that you didn’t know. The idea of storytelling is important. Our travel writing makes the destination the character, with a personality. It helps readers imagine what it’s really like there. Responsible Travel is a matchmaking service, and our writing helps people decide if they’d ‘get along’ with a destination.”

Travel highlight:

“Colombia – I had wanted to go there for ages, so I thought I’d go and get it out of my system, but once I got home I wanted to go straight back!”

Work highlight:

“At Responsible Travel, it’s been writing about Finland and the Arctic. I’ve never been anywhere like that before and don’t know if I ever will. There’s something surprising and magical about those places and they weren’t on my radar before.”